The conflict in Gaza has produced a blatant disregard for the mission of the United Nations, together with outrageous assaults on the staff, services and operations of the United Nations Reduction and Works Company for Palestine Refugees.
These assaults should cease and the world should act to carry the perpetrators accountable.
As I write this, our company has verified that at the very least 192 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza. More than 170 UNRWA premises have been broken or destroyed. UNRWA-run colleges have been demolished; some 450 displaced individuals have been killed whereas sheltered inside UNRWA colleges and different constructions. Since Oct. 7, Israeli safety forces have rounded up UNRWA personnel in Gaza, who’ve alleged torture and mistreatment whereas in detention within the Strip and in Israel.
UNRWA employees members are recurrently harassed and humiliated at Israeli checkpoints within the West Financial institution together with East Jerusalem. Company installations are utilized by the Israel safety forces, Hamas and different Palestinian armed teams for navy functions.
UNRWA shouldn’t be the one U.N. company that faces hazard. In April, gunfire hit World Meals Program and UNICEF autos, apparently inadvertently however regardless of coordination with the Israeli authorities.
The assault on UNRWA has unfold to East Jerusalem, the place a member of the Jerusalem municipality has helped incite protests in opposition to UNRWA. Demonstrations have gotten increasingly dangerous, with at the very least two arson attacks on our UNRWA compound, and a crowd together with Israeli youngsters gathered exterior our premises singing “Let the U.N. burn.” At different instances, demonstrators threw stones.
Israeli officials usually are not solely threatening the work of our employees and mission, they’re additionally delegitimizing UNRWA by successfully characterizing it as a terrorist group that fosters extremism and labeling U.N. leaders as terrorists who collude with Hamas. By doing so, they’re making a harmful precedent of routine focusing on of U.N. employees and premises.
How can this be attainable? The place is the worldwide outrage? Its absence is a license to ignore the United Nations and opens the door to impunity and chaos. If we tolerate such assaults within the context of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, we can not uphold humanitarian ideas in different conflicts all over the world. This assault on the United Nations will additional diminish our instruments for peace and protection in opposition to inhumanity all over the world. It should not turn into the brand new norm.
Whereas Israel has lengthy been hostile to UNRWA, following the abhorrent assaults of Oct. 7 it unleashed a marketing campaign to equate UNRWA with Hamas and depict the company as selling extremism. In a brand new dimension to this marketing campaign, the Israeli authorities made critical allegations that UNRWA employees had been concerned within the Hamas assault.
There is no such thing as a query that people accused of legal acts, together with the deplorable assault on Israel, have to be investigated. That is precisely what the United Nations is doing. These people have to be held accountable via legal prosecution and, if discovered responsible, punished.
The Workplace of Inner Oversight Providers, the highest investigative physique within the U.N. system, is overseeing this inquiry. It is looking into allegations in opposition to 19 out of 13,000 UNRWA employees members in Gaza. Thus far, one case was closed as a result of there was no proof. 4 instances had been suspended as a result of the knowledge was inadequate to proceed. One other 14 instances stay below investigation.
However we should distinguish the habits of people from the company’s mandate to serve Palestinian refugees. It’s unjust and dishonest to assault UNRWA’s mission on the premise of those allegations.
Exterior of those instances, there have been additional allegations of collusion with Hamas, which I consider have rendered — within the eyes of some — U.N. humanitarian staff and property to be reliable targets. That’s a hazard to U.N. staff in every single place. The world should act decisively in opposition to the illegitimate assaults on the United Nations, not just for Gaza and Palestinians however for all nations. The adoption last week by the U.N. Safety Council of Decision 2730 on the safety of humanitarian personnel is a welcome improvement.
The worldwide neighborhood has methods to deal with the committing of worldwide crimes, such because the Worldwide Legal Courtroom. Nevertheless, the size and scope of the assaults in opposition to U.N. personnel and premises within the occupied Palestinian territories within the final seven months benefit the pressing institution of a devoted, unbiased investigative physique, via a U.N. Safety Council or Basic Meeting decision, to establish the info and determine these liable for assaults on its businesses. Such an investigative physique can guarantee accountability and, crucially, assist to reaffirm the inviolability of worldwide regulation.
We should meaningfully defend U.N. establishments and the values they characterize earlier than the symbolic shredding of the constitution establishing the United Nations. This could solely be achieved via principled motion by the nations of the world and a dedication by all to peace and justice.
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